Movie Review: Breaking News In Yuba County (2021)

Genre: Dark Comedy  

Director: Tate Taylor  
Starring: Allison Janney, Mila Kunis, Regina Hall, Juliette Lewis, Ellen Barkin, Matthew Modine, Awkwafina  

Running Time: 96 minutes  

Synopsis: In Kentucky, timid Sue Buttons (Allison Janney) is married to banker Karl (Matthew Modine), who is not only ignoring her and having an affair, but also laundering money for a local mobster. Sue is impressed by television personality Gloria Michaels (Juliette Lewis), who is covering the story of a missing teenager. When Karl drops dead, Sue senses an opportunity to finally get the world to notice her: she secretly buries Karl and reports him missing. Soon she is basking in the media spotlight as the distraught wife, but also attracting the attention of Karl's criminal associates and police detective Harris (Regina Hall).

What Works Well: In a breezy opening act, Sue is introduced as drifting through life with an unwanted cloak of invisibility, her birthday forgotten by all including her half-sister (Mila Kunis). Hubby Karl's mid-thrust death is funny.

What Does Not Work As Well: The rest of the movie flounders into unoriginal silliness derived from To Die For and the Coens, but with neither zest nor wit. The clutter of secondary characters (including a couple of goons and their boss, Karl's lover, ex-con brother, the brother's ditzy boss, her lover, detective Harris, and her partner) stumble over each other, some carrying unearned attitudes but all of them lacking substance. Recognizing the congested narrative dead-end, writer Amanda Idoko rushes into a mad killing spree, chasing the misguided notion that every additional murder relieves the burden of coherence.

Key Quote:

Detective Harris: Mrs. Buttons, usually in a missing persons case, people call the police before calling the media.

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Movie Review: Kalifornia (1993)

Genre: Crime Drama Thriller  

Director: Dominic Sena  

Starring: Brad Pitt, Juliette Lewis, David Duchovny, Michelle Forbes  

Running Time: 117 minutes  

Synopsis: In Louisville, Kentucky, Brian (David Duchovny) is a writer conducting research on serial killers. His girlfriend Carrie (Michelle Forbes) is a photographer and excited to join him on a cross-country trip to visit infamous crime scenes, with California as a final destination. Brian advertises for traveling companions to share road trip costs, and white trash Early (Brad Pitt) and his girlfriend Adele (Juliette Lewis) join the trip. Carrie is never comfortable with the two travel companions, and gradually Early starts to reveal disturbing behaviour. 

What Works Well: The nature of evil receives a thorough examination in this uncompromising road trip through hell. Brian's intent to visit places where human malevolence flourished is sidetracked by here-and-now wickedness, and his willingness to afford the benefit of the doubt results in a sluggish inability to recognize Early's essence, amplifying the ensuing horror. Juliette Lewis is astounding as the girl-woman oblivious to her abuser's cruelty, and a sweaty, spitting, smoking, and swilling Brad Pitt allows his body odour to waft off the screen. Director Dominic Sena saturates America's back roads with stark light and vivid colours to leave no illusions about possibilities of redemption. 

What Does Not Work As Well: The second half starts to drag under the weight of repetitive soulless violence, not helped by Brian's morosely excessive narration.

Key Quote:

Early (to Brian): Tell me, big shot, how you gonna write a book about something you know nothing about?



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Movie Review: Back Roads (2018)

Genre: Drama  

Director: Alex Pettyfer  

Starring: Alex Pettyfer, Jennifer Morrison, Nicola Peltz, Juliette Lewis, Robert Patrick  

Running Time: 101 minutes  

Synopsis: Harley (Alex Pettyfer) is a young man struggling to care for his three younger sisters after their mother Bonnie (Juliette Lewis) was imprisoned for killing her abusive husband. Eldest sister Amber (Nicola Peltz) is now a rebellious teenager and eager to make life miserable for her brother. 12 year-old middle sister Misty is quiet and withdrawn, while the youngest sibling Jody is only six years old. Harley is attracted to older married neighbour Callie (Jennifer Morrison), but as they start an affair, he is increasingly haunted by childhood trauma and overwhelmed by his responsibilities.

What Works Well: Co-writers Adrian Lyne and Tawni O'Dell (adapting her book) create a disturbingly dark portrait of a family wrecked by abuse and violence. In his directorial debut, Alex Pettyfer commands the challenging material and demonstrates maturity to register impact with understatement, his own performance a study in exhausted complexity. He is supported by a trio of bold women: Jennifer Morrison embraces lust that turns into a gateway for danger; Nicola Peltz is a study in misdirected antagonism; and Juliette Lewis shares a devastating scene with Pettyfer across the prison glass. 

What Does Not Work As Well: There is an awful lot going on in this family, and none of it is good. The featureless suburban setting and grim brown tones underline a depressed mood as the plot works hard to snuff out any ambers of hope.

Conclusion: Haunting, blunt, and essential.



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Movie Review: Catch And Release (2006)

A miserable attempted romantic comedy, Catch And Release is full of dreadful people behaving badly.

In Boulder, Colorado, Gray (Jennifer Garner) is grieving the sudden death of her fiancé Grady. After the funeral she is unable to afford her own rent and moves in with Grady's best friends Sam (Kevin Smith) and Dennis (Sam Jaeger). Also staying at the house is Los Angeles-based cinematographer Fritz (Timothy Olyphant), another of Grady's buddies.

Before long Gray uncovers suspicious transactions from Grady's bank accounts and is shocked to discover he had an affair with Los Angeles massage therapist Maureen (Juliette Lewis) and was financially supporting her kid. Now Maureen shows up in Boulder looking for continued financial support. Meanwhile Gray starts to fall in love with Fritz, and locks horns with Grady's mother Ellen (Fiona Shaw).

Written and directed by Susannah Grant, Catch And Release traps itself in contrived situations and introduces a quite horrid set of characters. This material may have worked as a mean spirited dark comedy, but here Grant aims for traditional rom-com notes and finds only flat keys and few chuckles. Starting with the dead Grady having an affair behind the back of his fiancée, everyone scratches their base instincts with no regard for anyone else. Sam and Dennis both lust after the fiancée of their recently deceased best buddy, the narcissist Fritz finds time to have sex with the caterer at his friend's funeral, then lies to Gray about Maureen. 

But Gray decides her disgust with Fritz is actually passion in disguise, and jumps into bed with him at the earliest opportunity. Even Grady's mom Ellen is a horrible person, attempting to extract the engagement ring back from Gray, who later reciprocates by resorting to extortion. Ironically, Juliette Lewis as the saucy massage therapist Maureen emerges as the only genuine and consistent person worth caring about. The best that can be said about the others is that they deserve each other. Catch And Release should have remained undisturbed among the bottom-feeders.

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Movie Review: The Switch (2010)

A creaky romantic comedy, The Switch stretches credibility in search of laughs and love. A strong cast is still crushed by overbearing predictability.

In New York City, Kassie (Jennifer Aniston) decides to have a child using a sperm donor. Her best friend Wally (Jason Bateman), a stock analyst who suffers from mild neurosis, tries to talk her out of it, but she persists and selects college professor Roland (Patrick Wilson) as the donor. At the "insemination party" organized by Kassie's best friend Debbie (Juliette Lewis), a drunk and disoriented Wally secretly switches Roland's sperm for his own and recalls nothing about the incident.

Kassie gets pregnant and relocates to Minnesota. Seven years later she returns to New York with her son Sebastian and reconnects with both Wally and Roland. Wally quickly bonds with young Sebastian, who exhibits familiar signs of neurotic behaviour. Wally seeks advice from his boss Leonard (Jeff Goldblum), while Kassie starts a relationship with Roland, still believing he is the father.

With Wally confined to the friend zone but clearly still smitten by Kassie, The Switch telegraphs all the essential plot points within the first ten minutes. Allan Loeb's screenplay then trudges through another 90 minutes to arrive at the pre-ordained ending, suffering through all the predictable beats with precious few sparkling moments. In the hands of co-directors Will Speck and Josh Gordon, the tortured premise hinges on the well-worn malaise of characters failing to have the necessary conversations in fear of resolving all misunderstandings within television sit-com episode length.

The introduction of Sebastian in the second half provides a bit of a boost, and Wally's observations of nascent mannerisms within his offspring provide some father-son warmth independent of genre confines. In contrast, none of the other characters are remotely believable outside the flighty rom-com bubble, and emotions barely rise above good-looking-actors-reading-lines. Jennifer Aniston's Kassie is coldly self-obsessed as a love interest and even less invested as a mother. Jeff Goldblum and Juliette Lewis are wasted side-kick afterthoughts, and Patrick Wilson never stands a chance as the forced third point of a contrived love triangle.

Despite creating the space to delve into the challenges of single motherhood and anxiety within both adults and kids, the narrative lacks the courage for meaningful commentary. The Switch mixes up the donations, but still arrives at a dull place.

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Movie Review: Starsky And Hutch (2004)

A comedy action film, Starsky And Hutch attempts to both satirize and pay homage to the 1970s television police show. Instead it errs on the side of stupidity and dissolves into a puddle of irrelevance.

It's 1975 in Bay City. Detective David Starsky (Ben Stiller) is an intense officer, overzealously chasing after every last petty thief. Captain Doby (Fred Williamson) is exasperated by Starsky's inability to work with others, and partners him with Detective Ken "Hutch" Hutchinson (Owen Wilson), an officer so laid back he mingles with criminals and sometimes joins them on heists for fun. Hutch maintains Huggy Bear Brown (Snoop Dogg) as an underworld contact.

Drug lord Reese Feldman (Vince Vaughn) and his second-in-command Kevin Jutsum (Jason Bateman) are planning a major drug deal involving undetectable cocaine, modified to smell like sugar. Reese mingles in high society, owns a fancy yacht, and tries to pretend that he is an upstanding family man. But when one of Reece's henchmen shows up dead face down in the river, Starsky and Hutch get on the case and start to close in on Reese's operations.

A film which is essentially entirely forgotten a few minutes after the credits roll, Starsky And Hutch consists of an endless series of mind numbingly bad set-pieces, aiming for funny but achieving crass. See Starsky and Hutch dress up like the guys from Easy Rider for an aborted scene at a biker bar. Crack up laughing as Starsky and Hutch pretend to be mimes as they infiltrate a Bat Mitzvah. Be enthralled as Starsky chases a thief across rooftops. Laugh out loud at Huggy Bear pretending to be a golf caddy. Guffaw as Starsky unknowingly get high on cocaine and engages in a satirical disco dancing duel that was old in 1980.

Or better yet, don't. As directed by Todd Phillips, the film offers nothing beyond the obvious, the churlish and the vulgar, with the personalities of Starsky and Hutch more much more fingernails-on-chalkboard grating than funny. The film reaches an absolute low in a prison visit scene, with an uncredited Will Ferrell registering a personal career worst as an inmate who demands that the two detectives act out sexual fetishes.

In a minor role, Juliette Lewis is wasted, while Amy Smart and Carmen Electra show up to fulfill every immature boy's cheerleader fantasy.

The bright spots? It's good to see 1970s action stalwart Fred Williamson as the constantly irritated Captain Doby. And the real Starsky and Hutch, namely Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul, show up for a late cameo. Incredible as it may seem, the 2004 version of Starsky And Hutch makes the bad acting and bad television from three decades past appear stellar.

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Movie Review: August: Osage County (2013)

The convoluted tribulations of the ultimate dysfunctional family, August: Osage County is a melodrama of social wreckage enhanced by stellar acting performances.

During a long hot summer in Oklahoma, Beverly Weston (Sam Shepard), a professor, poet and alcoholic, finally walks away from his long-time wife Violet (Meryl Streep), an overbearing woman addicted to prescription drugs. Beverly's disappearance, soon confirmed as a suicide, causes a family crisis, and Violet's family members converge at her large house for the funeral and to pick up the pieces.

Violet's sister Mattie Fae (Margo Martindale) and her husband Charles (Chris Cooper) arrive first, followed by Violet's daughter Ivy (Julianne Nicholson), who also lives in Oklahoma. Arriving from out of town are Violet's daughter Barbara (Julia Roberts) with her husband Bill (Ewan McGregor) and 14 year old daughter Jean (Abigail Breslin). A third daughter Karen (Juliette Lewis) arrives with flamboyant fiancé Steve (Dermot Mulroney). Last to arrive by bus is "Little" Charles (Benedict Cumberbatch), the grown son of Mattie Fae and Charles.

Zonked out on her drugs, Violet sets about pouring salt in all the open wounds of her family. Barbara and Bill are on the verge of a divorce, and the brooding Jean is already using marijuana. Ivy is unmarried and resents being the only daughter left behind to look after her mother. Karen is self-obsessed and has long since stopped caring about anyone other than herself. Meanwhile Steve, already twice divorced, immediately unleashes his slime on Jean. Little Charles lacks confidence and is still treated like an incompetent child by his mother. As Violet mercilessly pounces on every weakness that she sees, Barbara has to decide on what action to take to knock her mother back into a reasonable orbit.

Designed to make every other family appear normal, August: Osage County exhausts all possible miseries that one family can possibly endure. Prescription drug abuse, recreational drugs, generations of emotional abuse, alcohol dependency, suicide, separation, parental smothering and layers of guilt, and this is before the really juicy secrets are spilled in the final third.

The entire film is based on dialogue and confrontation, and Tracy Letts does well to adapt his play into a measured movie with ever more complex issues revealed in layers. Every character is damaged to various degrees, dealing with emotional losses and lost opportunities. And each one of Violet's relatives has a reason to lay blame on another family member for their perceived misfortune, resulting in an intricate web of recrimination and castigation.

Presented on a knife's edge between tense comedy and overwrought drama, the film maintains its balance thanks to a superb cast. Meryl Streep is given the freedom of the open Oklahoma plains to let loose, and she does deliver a memorable performance as Violet, a woman long past caring about what others think about her outrageous opinions. With Violet's social senses dulled by years of prescription drug abuse and a battle with cancer, Streep has the excuse to go over the top, and she does so in a showcase of emotional overload backed-up by a victim card. With Streep on the screen, which is often, the film crackles with the intensity of a woman who thrives on domination because she has nothing else to fall back on.

Julia Roberts is more restrained, her performance in many ways more intense and loaded with realism. Barbara is in the classical generational sandwich, her marriage falling apart as she is squeezed between her unbearable mother and a rebellious daughter. Roberts conveys the struggles of a woman quietly terrified of following in the footsteps of her mother, Barbara livid at Violet's dependencies and insensitivities mostly because they represent potential signposts in her own life.

The rest of the cast is uniformly excellent, director John Wells doing well to gradually introduce the many family members as they gather at Violet's house, each character getting a few dedicated minutes of relative normalcy to establish a presence before the secrets start oozing.

For all the humour generated by adults mistreating each other, the film does singularly focus on the prevailing bleakness. Letts and Wells allow their characters very few opportunities to genuinely laugh and live, the obsession with anguish coming at the expense of exploring more realistic lives. In August: Osage County, if it isn't dispiriting, it isn't happening, but all the snaky negativity is undoubtedly engrossing.

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The Movies Of Juliette Lewis

All movies starring Juliette Lewis and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Cape Fear (1991)

Husbands And Wives (1992)

Kalifornia (1993)

What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)

Natural Born Killers (1994)

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

Starsky And Hutch (2004)

Catch And Release (2006)

The Switch (2010)

August: Osage County (2013)

Nerve (2016)

Back Roads (2018)

Ma (2019)

Breaking News In Yuba County (2021)

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.
The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Cape Fear (1991)

A tense journey into unyielding terror, Cape Fear is an exceptional drama. Martin Scorsese creates an epic nightmare as one family's life is ravaged by an ex-convict hell bent on revenge.

Max Cady (Robert De Niro) is released from prison after serving 14 years for viciously raping a teenager. He immediately goes to the quaint town of New Essex, North Carolina, where lawyer Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte) lives with his wife Leigh (Jessica Lange) and 15 year old daughter Danielle (Juliette Lewis). Sam was the Georgia public defendant tasked with representing Max. Convinced that Max was guilty, Sam buried an investigative report that could have helped to acquit his client. In prison, Max not only worked on achieving supreme physical fitness, but also educated himself and uncovered Sam's unethical behaviour. He now wants revenge for the lost years of his life.

Sam's marriage to Leigh is already in trouble, with Sam's eyes wandering towards court clerk Lori (Illeana Douglas), while Danielle is in rebellion against her parents. But Sam's troubles multiply when Max starts to stalk the family's every move. Leigh's dog dies suspiciously, and Lori is brutally raped by Max, but refuses to testify for fear that her relationship with Sam may be revealed. Max becomes more brazen, arranging to meet Danielle alone, showering her with flattery and attempting to turn her against her parents. Sam receives no help from the police, and in desperation turns to private investigator Claude Kersek (Joe Don Baker) for help. Kersek arranges for Max to receive a back alley beating, but the attempt at thuggery fails. Sam finds his house under siege, his family threatened, and no way to turn back a man obsessed with his own twisted brand of justice.

A remake of the 1962 film starring Robert Mitchum and Gregory Peck, Scorsese infuses his version with psycho-sexual and religious overtones that amplify the creepiness factor. Cady is not only evil and physically indestructible, he is a sexual predator on the hunt for new young victims, with Danielle his ideal target. He is also a philosopher fuelled by deviant religious fervour gained from devouring the Bible while in prison. Scorsese turns Cady into a heinous force of nature rather than a man, De Niro responding with wiry performance filled with barely restrained intensity.

Cape Fear builds tension surely and steadily. The film offers no relief, no humour, and no respite. With every scene, Scorsese nudges Sam Bowden's life closer towards the precipice, Cady's presence nibbling away at any security and comfort not already damaged by the simmering resentment between Sam and Leigh. By the time Sam packs up his family and starts the long drive to Cape Fear, fear is ironically the only thing holding Sam, Leigh and Danielle together.

The film is filled with memorable moments, including the dark alley fight with Cady taking on three goons hired by Kersek to solve Sam's problem, the game of stealth that ends with sheer bloody horror as Kersek attempts to lay a trap for Cady at Sam's house, and Cady's unique method of transportation to Cape Fear.

But the film's most hypnotizing scene is the encounter between Max and Danielle at the empty theatre, a meeting of Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf in man's clothing. It's a long scene, filmed by Scorsese with acute patience, as Max psychologically wraps Danielle around his figurative finger by preying on her burgeoning independence, and then literally uses his finger to dominate her by triggering her latent sexuality. It's a terrifying, asymmetrical confrontation, a demonstration of how much damage Max can deliver without even resorting to violence. Both De Niro and Lewis received deserved Academy Award acting nominations.

While Nick Nolte's Sam is more of a passive victim, Jessica Lange gives Leigh a full role in the mounting horror. Lange makes the most of the unresolved issues of betrayal harboured by Leigh towards Sam, and shines when it's time to defend her daughter at all costs, the only time that any character comes close to penetrating Cady's formidable psychological defences. Elsewhere in the cast, small roles for Peck, Mitchum and Martin Balsam provide a strong linkage back to the 1962 original.

With the blunders of the past re-emerging to haunt an imperfect present, Cape Fear is a classy experience in relentless horror.

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Movie Review: Husbands And Wives (1992)

Woody Allen delves into the soul of the institution of marriage through the lives of two couples. Husbands And Wives uncovers a complex web of dependence, resentment, longing and confusion.

A pair of middle-aged married couples are also best friends. At the start of a dinner outing, Jack and Sally (Sydney Pollack and Judy Davis) suddenly and nonchalantly announce that they are splitting up, shocking Gabe and Judy (Allen and Mia Farrow). Judy, an arts magazine editor, is particularly disturbed, and begins to question the strength of her marriage to Gabe. They have been drifting apart, can't agree on whether or not they want to have a child, and Gabe's position as a university professor of literature exposes him to plenty of temptation in the form of fawning young female students.

And indeed, Gabe starts spending time with Rain (Juliette Lewis), one of his students. She is independent, beautiful and thinks the world of him. Meanwhile, Jack enters into a relationship with the much younger Sam (Lysette Anthony), a health-obsessed aerobics teacher. Sally pretends to be enjoying life as a single woman, but in reality she is miserable. Judy eventually introduces Sally to Michael (Liam Neeson), a co-worker at the magazine, and they seem to hit it off, although Michael wants to progress the relationship faster than Sally is ready for. Judy actually harbours strong feelings for Michael, a further strain on her unraveling relationship with Gabe.

Allen, who directed and also wrote the screenplay, picks up on several difficult but pervasive themes. Both Jack and Gabe start relationships with younger women, as they get an ego boost by interacting with appreciative women who could almost be their daughters. Allen pushes further, exploring the limits of these cross-generational relationships. Sam's obsession with astrology and health begins to aggravate Jack, while Gabe gets a rude awakening with Rain's scalpel-like honesty in criticizing his work from the perspective of a more liberated era.

Both Sally and Judy are exceedingly difficult to please. Sally is a perfectionist who can never be fully complimentary about anything, and insists on picking away at any little item that does not fully satisfy her. Judy is used to getting her way with an understated victim act, turning most issues in her favour by magnifying the impact to her happiness yet rarely acknowledging the feelings of others. When Jack and Sally announce their split Judy is more upset than either of them, and when Gabe agrees to her request that they can try and have a child, she abruptly changes her mind with no acknowledgement of his attempt to please her.

Husbands And Wives pokes into many of the awkward issues faced by married couples, including reduced sexual activity, boredom, lack of attentiveness and the aggravation caused by over-familiarity. And yet the film also starts to find the strands that bind, the core strengths that can hold a relationship together despite all the buffeting. Accommodation, forgiveness and tolerance emerge as themes late in the movie, as one couple discover that the frustrations also comes with plenty of comforts.

Stylistically Husbands And Wives is all about the hand-held camera hovering right around the living rooms and bedrooms of adults talking through their crises. Most of the film consists of exceedingly long takes, the camera moving along with the actors from room to room as conversations intensify, heat-up, then cool down, only to re-ignite. The viewer is effectively invited into the homes and intimate lives of Jack, Sally, Gabe and Judy, for better or for worse.

The four central performances are good without being exceptional. There is a slight element of theatricality, and an absence of genuine deeply emotional tones, as Allen keeps the mood generally light and looks for hints of humour despite the serious topics. The characters speak directly to the camera at regular intervals, the fake interviews used as a mechanism to further elaborate on their thoughts and actions. It's a gimmicky technique that is not really needed in the context of the movie.

Husbands And Wives proved to be fiction echoing stranger fact for Allen, as around the time of its release his long-term real-life relationship with Farrow ended and he became romantically involved with the much younger Soon-Yi Previn, Farrow's adopted daughter. Men and women may never fully understand the forces of attraction and repulsion between them, only that the chemistry can become exceedingly messy.

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Movie Review: Natural Born Killers (1994)

An orgy of violence intended as a condemnation of society's glorification of criminals and their crimes, Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers is a brave effort that unfortunately falls short. Despite an eye-dazzling style, the script deteriorates just when the message becomes important, the film losing its nerve and diving deeper into blood bath territory.

Mickey and Mallory Knox (Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis) are on a murderous crime spree in rural New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada. Both abused as children, they fell in love as soon as they set eyes on each other, and Mickey self-administered their marriage after killing Mallory's abusive father (Rodney Dangerfield) and submissive mother. Now running wild and killing for fun, their victims include a woman they held hostage to watch them have sex, a gas station attendant seduced by Mallory, and patrons at an isolated roadhouse. As the murder count clicks up to 52, television show host Wayne Gale (Robert Downey Jr.) leads the media in glamorizing the couple and they garner a cult following while on the run.

The pair get lost in the desert and are rescued by a mystical Navajo Indian (Russell Means) who recognizes a demon within Mickey. For the first time the murderers feel some remorse, and detective Jack Scagnetti (Tom Sizemore), himself prone to extreme violence, catches up with them. Held in a maximum security prison where slimy Warden Dwight McClusky (Tommy Lee Jones) is in charge, Mickey and Mallory are targeted in a duplicitous plan to further the careers of McClusky, Scagnetti and Gale.

Co-written by Stone from an original story by Quentin Tarantino, Natural Born Killers is constructed in a brash and vibrant style, filmed with animated quick edits, lighting stunts, crazy camera angles and black and white shots, often juxtaposed within seconds. Stone's intent is to diffuse the violence with an outlandishly cartoonish ethic, and this part of the film works. Mickey and Mallory inflict a lot of damage, but it's presented at the edge of tongue-in-cheek, Stone daring his audience to be shocked when kids are allowed to watch the carnage of Tom and Jerry as harmless entertainment. The soundtrack uses mini-clips from a large selection of bellicose rock tracks to fuel the murderous onslaught.

The intended focus is therefore not the violence but the public reaction to it, and Natural Born Killers races to show the public falling in love with the romanticism of two wild killers on the loose, and the media machine milking the criminals for all the ratings that they are worth. But Stone can't escape being part of the culture that he is criticizing, since Natural Born Killers presents Mickey and Mallory as the only central characters worth caring about.

Their horrific backgrounds and upbringing are sympathetically presented to justify their antisocial behaviour, and all the secondary characters other than Navajo man are much less appealing. With attractive, vivacious performances from Harrelson and Lewis, the criminals are presented in the best possible light, amplifying all the reasons for cultural obsession with outcasts who leave a mark. Jones, Downey Jr. and Sizemore do their jobs in portraying establishment and media characters as two-faced and corrupt, making it easy to cheer-on Mickey and Mallory as they rage against the machine.

Natural Born Killers ultimately has nowhere to go, and so Stone catapults the climax into outright hysteria. Detective Scagnetti clumsily attempts to seduce Mallory, reporter Wayne Gale loses his grip on reality and gets possessed by the very same violence he pretends to be outraged about, inmates turn into blood-thirsty maniacs, and an entire prison is drenched in blood. The mayhem drowns out any opportunity to make a point, and the killers remain icons of a society that meekly settles for the easiest of grotesque entertainment fixes.

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Movie Review: What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)

A drama offering hope amidst despair, What's Eating Gilbert Grape benefits from an outstanding Leonardo DiCaprio performance, and a story that never gives up looking for silver linings.

In the small rural town of Endora, Iowa, Gilbert Grape (Johnny Depp) is a young man struggling to maintain some semblance of sanity in a challenging household. Ever since his dad disappeared (and maybe committed suicide), Gilbert's mom Bonnie (Darlene Cates) has collapsed into morbid obesity, and has not left the creaky house in seven years.

Gilbert is one of the few people who can manage the erratic behaviour of his severely mentally retarded younger brother Arnie (DiCaprio), who is about to turn 18 and living on borrowed time according to all the doctors. Of his two sisters, the older Amy (Laura Harrington) does her best to help run the house, but the younger Ellen (Mary Kate Schellhardt) is a self-obsessed young teen, with an uncanny ability to make every bad family situation worse.

As an escape valve Gilbert is carrying on an affair with Betty (Mary Steenburgen), a frustrated older woman married to an insurance agent. He also has a couple of friends, including Tucker (John C. Reilly), who dreams of opening a burger franchise, and Bobby, the town mortician. But the arrival of Becky (Juliette Lewis) in Endora ignites Gilbert's attention, and he starts spending more time with her and viewing his family in a different light.

In his breakthrough role at 18 years old, DiCaprio delivers an astonishing performance as Arnie Grape. Portraying damaged four year old behaviour in the body of an adolescent, DiCaprio moves with ticks, quirks, and unconstrained physical abandonment. He is also prone to frequent outbursts, endless loud repetition of the most childish of phrases, and the most convincing temper tantrums. Yet there is a heart deep within the retarded child, and it emerges in flashes, most often near the calming influence of Becky and away from the chaotic Grape household.

Johnny Depp's portrayal of Gilbert is equally perfect, for different reasons. Depp's eyes tell the tale of a young man barely holding his family together, and burying deep within himself the sorrow and anger at the loss of his father and embarrassment with his ballooning mother. It's an enforced transformation to premature adulthood for Gilbert, and a demonstration by Depp that he is capable of complex, layered roles.

Becky is almost too perfect, the young woman proving to be an ideal antidote to all of Gilbert's problems, patient, understanding, loving and accepting of all the extreme eccentricities surrounding the Grape household. Becky is nothing but a good influence, a positive force in the movie but also a role that Juliette Lewis can do relatively little with.

Director Lasse Hallstrom, working from Peter Hedges' adaptation of his own novel, makes excellent use of the rural location to maintain a quiet and dignified environment despite the chaos surrounding Gilbert. Hallstrom deftly works the film towards the modest conclusion that the Grapes are no different than any other family, individuals dealing as best as they can with a set of challenges. There are several parts of the Grape household that are on their last legs, but perhaps not the obvious ones. By the end Gilbert does well to make peace where he needs to and arranges an appropriate joint farewell to the family members who need to move on.

What's Eating Gilbert Grape is moving without being emotional, grounded without being overly dramatic, and serious without ever losing touch with the hope for a better tomorrow that beats solidly within every character. Nothing and everything is eating Gilbert Grape: he is getting on with life and doing a fine job.

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Movie Review: From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

An exercise in stylishly meaningless blood-letting, From Dusk Till Dawn just wants to have fun.  Director Robert Rodriguez delivers an enjoyably gory package, while stars George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino are captivating as they play their over-the-top roles appropriately straight.

Brutal criminal Seth Gecko (Clooney) and his psychotic sex-offender brother Richie (Tarantino) have just violently robbed a Texas bank and are holding hostages as they make a run to Mexico. At a grocery store near the border, Richie kills a local lawman, and in the ensuing shootout, the brothers also shoot and kill the store clerk, but not before Richie is wounded with a bullet through his palm. In the chaos, all their hostages flee except for an elderly bank clerk; Richie kills her anyway when the brothers take refuge in a seedy motel.

Seth kidnaps a vacationing family consisting of pastor Jacob (Harvey Keitel) and his two teenage children, Scott and Kate (Juliette Lewis). The group crosses into Mexico, where Seth has arranged a dawn rendezvous with local crimelord Carlos (Cheech Marin). Seth and Richie force their hostages to settle in for a night of drinking at the Titty Twister strip joint, a rough, isolated biker and trucker hangout. But when the sun goes down, most of the staff, dancers and regulars at the Titty Twister transform into ugly, vicious vampires, intent on devouring the human customers. Seth and Richie need the help of their hostages as well as other colourful customers, including Sex Machine (Tom Savini) and Vietnam War veteran Frost (Fred Williamson), to fight back and survive the night.

Once the vampires take over From Dusk Till Dawn, the movie does not pretend to be anything more than a hyperkinetic blood-soaked comedy of catroon-level violence. Tarantino's screenplay delivers the laughs as Clooney and company fend-off endless hordes of blood-suckers, finding a never ending stream of tools to try and prevent the vampires from having their dinner.

Despite the orgy of violence, Tarantino finds time in the script to give Seth some humanity: Seth blames himself for Richie turning into a sick psychopath. And if there is a message among the bloodied and mangled bodyparts, it is that even individuals as messed up as Seth and Richie will encounter more horrible creatures at some point in their life.

Supporting Clooney and Tarantino is an entertaining cast that adds to the merriment. It's a treat to find Williamson, a veteran of 1970s cheapo exploitation movies, as an unexpected ally in the long battle at the cantina. Cheech Marin plays three manic roles, as a border guard, a greeter at the Titty Twister, and as Carlos. Salma Hayek shows up briefly but memorably as the awesome Satanico Pandemonium, the club's star performer. And Harvey Keitel brings a comically false solemness to the proceedings as a pastor questioning his calling after the death of his wife.

Thanks to the talent on both sides of the camera, From Dusk Till Dawn is much more entertaining than an ultimately pointless movie has any right to be.

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